Doom Guy: Life in First Person

by John Romero

He took the job, and I was beyond excited. I was even more excited when I saw Carmack in action. He could and would sit for hours and hours studying and coding. Like me, he didn’t smoke, drink, or do drugs. Unlike me, he didn’t have a family or even a girlfriend. He lived alone, which meant he could spend every minute of every day poring over the PC. And that’s what he did. The only time he wasn’t programming was when he slept or walked to our office refrigerator to get another Coke. He was in boot camp, working 24/7, trying to learn as much as possible about PCs. It was incredible to watch someone else besides me run a programming ultra-marathon. The three of us set up our office for serious work: In addition to Intel 386 PCs provided by Big Al, we invested in a fridge, a microwave, and a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). We liked metal, so we cranked our favorite tunes. Our eyes were locked on code, on books, on magazines, downloading it all into our heads. Carmack and I shared information with each other, teaching techniques picked up along our solo paths. We didn’t do this because we had to. We did this because we wanted to. If you’ve ever stayed up far too late because you were playing a game, bingeing a series, or reading a book, code had the exact same effect on us. Learning more was its own reward.